Semiconductor devices are used in a variety of electronic applications, such as personal computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and other electronic equipment, as examples. Semiconductor devices are typically fabricated by sequentially depositing insulating or dielectric layers, conductive layers, and semiconductor layers of material over a semiconductor substrate, and patterning the various material layers using lithography to form circuit components and elements thereon.
The semiconductor industry continues to improve the integration density of various electronic components (e.g., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.) by continual reductions in minimum feature size, which allow more components to be integrated into a given area. Components of a package may be stacked using conductive connective structures to allow stacked components to communicate with each other, or with external components. For example, solder ball grid arrays are a technique sometimes used to join substrate, dies or packages, with an array of solder balls deposited on the bonding pads of a first substrate, and with a second substrate, die or package joined at its own bonding pad sites to the first pad via the solder balls. A molding compound or other supporting structures may be applied around the connecter structures to provide support, protection, and insulation. In some instances, the connectors and molding compound may be applied to the surface of dies formed on a wafer prior to the die being cut, or singulated for mounting on a board or carrier.